Improvement in water-wheels



rrr Ares RALPH sUMMERs, oE s'ENEcA EALLs, NEW YORK.

lMPROVEiVlENT iN WATER-WHEELS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 4&7@ datedApril 25, 1846.

passage being the same, while its figure.

changes from an oblong horizontal to an oblong vertical figure, and the length of the passage being suiiicient to admit of the change. There may be any reasonable number of issues or discharging-orifices in my improved wheel; but I prefer two only, as being the most convenient and efficient. rIhere is in this as in other reacting-wheels a central open- Ying or eye for the shaft of the wheel, and at or near the periphery of the wheel is a ring projecting about one inch from the face thereof. This ring is turned true and smooth, and when the wheel is setnp it comes nearly in contact with the trunk, penstoclr, or flume, which conducts the water to the wheel, there` by preventing the escape ofthe water.

In the drawings, Figure l is a plan of the face of the wheel. A is the opening or eye for the shaft. A A is the projecting ring above named. B B are ilat plates extending from the eye to the rim of the wheel. These plates extend spirally around the eye of the wheel in the same plane as the thread of a screw, and at an angle of from fifteen to twentytwo degrees, and, after passing around onehalf the circumference of the wheel, they begin to lap or extend over each other, as at B B', so as to form the orifices at which the waterv enters. At that point they are at a distance from each other about equal to their width,and there form the two` opposite sides of the vent, the other sides being made by the eye and rim of J[he wheel. From thence the curved passages arel gradually enlarged in the direction of the axis yof the wheel by the inclination of plate B, and they are contracted Fig. 3 is a perspective view of the wheel, y

the letters referring to the same parts as in Figs. 1 and 2.

The advantages derived from the above-described wheel are as follows: The water enters on the face of the wheel, (shown in Fig. 1,) having the whole wheel, except the eye, for entrance, presses upon the plates B B, giving motion in the same` direction as the reacting pressure or vent at c, to which it passes readily and freely through the curved passages without changing its relative direction, and the water, being drawn into a thin broad sheet at the point of discharge, act more equally and powerfully in consequence of the whole column being discharged as far as practicable, consistent with compactness, from the center.

Having thus fully described the construction of my wheel,what I claim therein as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

Constructing the wheel so that the water shall be received upon an inclined surface eX- tending from the eye -to the periphery, and thence entering the passage upon the same surface undiminished in width, said passage increasing in the direction of the axis and diminishing in the direction of the radins, so that the areas of all its sections shall be substantially equal, and so located and eirtended that the water shall all be discharged immediately outside of the periphery in a thin tangential sheet. whose plane is parallel to the axis, the whole being constructed and combined substantially as herein set forth.

RALPH SUMMERS. Vitnesses: JOHN MAYNARD, WAsi-IBURN RAGE. 

